Tributes:


http://rocknrollrunner.blogspot.com/2008/07/rip-christopher.html
http://christophertuckerforever.wordpress.com/
http://www.philebrity.com/2008/07/27/rip-christopher-tucker-1971-2008/
http://www.phillygirlabouttown.com/girl_about_town/2008/07/christopher-tuc.html

PlugInMusic.com
After the weightless swirling melodies and electronic accents on Dora Flood's last album, "Highlands," the newest album from the band is like a new beginning, a new chapter in Dora Flood's musical progression. Retaining those memorable melodies, Dora Flood make "We Live Now" into a psychedelic shoegazer album that has edge and depth that varies throughout. Dora Flood make it is easy to get swept up in to the action.

     Buzzing and fluid instrumentation remains light and bouncy on "Phoenix Rising," as it gets stuck in your head with an infectious air. A slightly darker melody pulls "Feels Like Yesterday" out its surroundings with a feel of danger and excitement. Elsewhere on "Everywhere We Go," Dora Flood offer riff driven psych pop while the smooth melody of "Humble High" sails gently by before temporarily branching off into a chugging interlude. Frontman Michael Padilla's falsetto vocals add a new dimension to tracks like the rigid driving riff contrasting the dreamy melody on "Atlantis" while "Faith and Deviation" takes a loose and edgy approach that ends with an instrumental jam session.

     Full, rich instrumentation dominates Dora Flood's "We Live Now," the band's sixth album. The result is that no matter what choices Dora Flood makes, the result always maintains a certain level of quality. But for "We Live Now," Dora Flood does more than just go through the motions. Light pop melodies backed with occasional heaviness, Dora Flood make "We Live Now" into a memorable listen that is always changing and blending itself into something new.

Exclaim!
Dora Flood
We Live Now ..Dora Flood-->
By Michael Edwards

Dora Flood have been doing what they do for some time now. They've been, in fact, doing it long enough that they aren't really part of the shoegazing revival — they were part of the original scene. With five albums in their back catalogue, all of which can be downloaded for free from the band's website, they've evolved gradually into the band that have just released We Live Now. According to the group, this is their heaviest record, although that doesn't push We Live Now into metal territory. That said, they've definitely mastered the dirty guitar sound that made Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's first album so memorable, and that is what they rely on to drive the majority of the songs forward. They haven't turned their backs on their early days, with some dreamier tracks that hint at early Pink Floyd. The good news is that this laidback psychedelic sound works well for them. While it isn't a terribly exciting album, people who like this kind of thing will like it a lot...We Live Now-->(Elephant Stone)

Aural Innovations:

Dora Flood is a shoegazing dream pop band from San Francisco and this is their sixth full-length release. To my ears, on their latest album they play guitar-driven, British styled indie rock with some psychedelic influences. The first track on the CD entitled "Phoenix Rising" is a mid-tempo, pretty groovy guitar pop with organs somewhere in between Oasis and Verve. "Everywhere We Go" is a bit faster number with some New Wave/punk spirit and psych effects. "Feels Like Yesterday" is a quite nice, more hypnotic shoegaze track in the Verve vein. "Revelation Blues" is in deed a bit bluesy, and "Atlantis" quite interesting, at times heavy number in ¾ time signature. "Humble High" is a slow one with slide guitar and "Day Dream" more like retro pop reminding me of The Soundtrack of Our Lives. "Invisible Throne" is a peaceful, slow song that has some synthesizer. One of the highlights is the also quite slow but relatively heavy "Faith and Deviation" that has some great organ work and high-pitched vocals and a lot of laid-back guitar soloing. The album ends with the rather soft "Light" that has some piano sounds, slide etc. We Live Now doesn't do that much for me, but it's not that bad either. You can download the band's whole entire back catalogue from their web site to check them out by yourself.

Under the Radar: 7 out of 10, with a bunch of stuff written but we seemed to have lost that review.

Ashley Naylor's "Four Track Mind"

Naylor might be known to some fronting the band Even, who excel at Kinks/Who-style retro-rock, but with his first solo album, he shoots for a much mellower, strummy sound. It's a great sounding album dominated by acoustic guitar and Naylor's warm tenor voice which brings to mind Robyn Hithcock, Terry Reid, and even Paul Westerberg's quieter moments. There's a hint of early Bowie here in the melodies. Drop-D instrumental "Pyjama Star" aside, much of the album rests on Naylor's voice and it's inviting and compelling. The production is spare and straighforward and the album is all the better for it. In fact, this stands out from the usual acoustic solo album simply because the songs are so solid and there isn't anything to get in their way. This one's a keeper.

-The Big Takeover
Corin Ashley

Some new reviews:

All Music Guide: Dora Flood's latest album of psyched-out fuzz is, indeed, just that -- and there's no sin in doing it very well. Taking the tack that one can be massively heavy but can still find the pop in it all -- something that Josh Homme has long since demonstrated is an entirely feasible approach -- Dora Flood's own long career hasn't been as celebrated but deserves an ear; We Live Now is a good entry for the curious. (It also doesn't hurt that they know to call the first song on the album "Phoenix Rising," and that they make it sound like that, a slow epic rise of a song with a killer guitar solo that's pure skybound-from-the-desert majesty.) If Dora Flood have a reliable standby it's soothing but stoned harmonies mixed with exultant guitar, something that inevitably calls to mind everything from the Association and late-'60s Byrds to proto-metal like Steppenwolf. Classic tripping out is unsurprisingly in evidence, thus the blend of light falsetto and rising and falling keyboards on "Atlantis," spiked with a total guitar snarl on the chorus. Even the more straight-up pop moments aren't really that; a song like "Everywhere We Go" keeps things on a calmer and generally brisker tip (not quite motorik but not too far removed), but the layered arrangement, massed vocals, and spiraling, spindly solos and more make for a thick end result. No question that Dora Flood are out to revisit a past that never quite was rather than projecting where things might go next, but with this as a given, We Live Now is a pure treat, full stop.Ned Raggett (February 2007)

Mars Needs Guitars: Dora Flood are by far one of the most successful, and are worthy of being one of the (if not the) best, Shoegaze/Dreampop bands in the United States. The San Francisco quintet have released five wonderful LP's (and one EP) over the course of a dynamic career defining them worthy of such a title. Their latest effort We Live Now (Elephant Stone) is probably their most "heaviest" work to date. Alot of bands take nods from and try to duplicate late 60's and early 70's psychedelic boogie rock but only a few can really pull it off, Dora Flood is one of the later. Everything is intact, from blistering guitars, pounding bass rhythms, layered orchestration and endless melodies. We Live Now is a fuzzed out psych pop masterpiece, one that will be kept on top of the shuffle for a long time to come.

The Red Alert: Shoegazing dream pop from San Francisco—you think you know what you're going to get. Think again. This ain't some airy, breathy slide into some other planet's atmosphere. This is your gritty and rough and heavy dream pop, closer to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club than Swervedriver; they may be staring at their shoes, but them shoes are nice and dirty. There are some drifts into a nice Spacemen 3 / Loop sonic drone, but without it taking over the whole song – just a taste here and there before the band kicks back into some StonerGazer groove. Dora Flood is pushing ahead while dragging the past along with them. Trippy light shows and hanging out in the '60s gets kicked up a notch and a few decades to a sonic assult and swirled guitars slipping over harmonizing vocals and driving rhythms. The songs do lapse into a hypnotic flow once in awhile, but the fuzz of the guitar always scoops you up and out of the psychedelic guitar waves and throws you headfirst into the next song. The third track, "Feels Like Yesterday," almost does feel like yesterday. Like some drawn out Doors solo before the inevitable freak-out. Like a Jefferson Airplane flashback tied to a Ride-inspired brit-pop jam. The next song moves a few steps over, getting all blues-grooved and snarly, like a Louisiana bad-trip, but man… the music can save you. So keep listening. Dora Flood washes over you and pulls you along, slides you through—an adventure that ends on a slow and mellow but spaciously beautiful song titled "Light." — Marcel Feldmar

Skinny Mag
San Francisco-based quintet Dora Flood got their start in the explosion of a certain early '90s musical sub-genre (whose name, in a fit of teenage self-righteousness I swore to myself I would never use) characterized by riff-heavy guitars and atmospheric synthesizer effects. Some call it dream-pop, but let's just say the boys in Dora Flood have stolen more than a glance or two at their toes. In truth, though, such categorizations become irrelevant when listening to We Live Now, as Dora Flood has crafted an album of diversely influenced psychedelic rock that you don't have to stare at your feet to appreciate. The album opens with "Phoenix Rising," a fuzz-powered guitar groove that gets kicked up in the second verse by some screaming rock organ before dissolving into a multilayered sitar wash. The album seems to get stronger as it progresses, from the juke-joint swagger of "Revelation Blues," to the standout track "Atlantis," whose sweeping, spaced-out verses recall Blonde Redhead at their trippiest, and whose head-banging choruses surely have Randy Rhoads peering down from rock-god heaven with pride. For all of the diversity of retro-psychedelic influences incorporated here, the album is unmistakably contemporary. With one foot firmly planted in the sounds of their forbearers, Dora Flood's eyes are fixed on the future (and not their sneakers).

High Bias
We Live Now
(Elephant Stone)
Apparently, Dora Flood got tired of being polite. After several albums of shimmering, often gorgeous psychedelic guitar pop, the San Francisco band rocks out on We Live Now, its fifth record. Though the quintet certainly doesn't skimp on the trippy guitar effects and ringing hooks of its prior work, now its songs often boast the kind of noise-loving power chords more associated with stoner rock or even metal. Mixing the aggressive riffology with its usual acidic atmospherics gives "Daydream," "Atlantis" and "Phoenix Rising" a compelling power the group has rarely before enjoyed. Make no mistake—the band's use of hard rockin' licks isn't a makeover into the latest neo-AOR wannabe-star. Instead Dora Flood is adding another, quite logical arrow to its quiver, augmenting its already strong songs and dynamic arrangements with air guitarist's delight. Dig it. Michael Toland

Baby Sue:
Dora Flood - We Live Now (CD, Elephant Stone, Pop/rock)
Many bands appear, make a big splash, and then disappear within a matter of months. The guys in San Francisco's Dora Flood are taking a different approach...slowly building and expanding their influence based upon good word-of-mouth. We Live Now is a nifty, smooth spin that showcases the band's pop sensibilities as well as their tendencies toward subtle psychedelia. Produced by the band themselves and recorded onto two inch analog tape, this album has a nice warm sound quality that is a refreshing change from hearing too much digitally recorded music. Some of the tunes tend to rock...while others are somewhat drony in nature. We find this band's guitars particularly appealing. The layering of different guitar sounds definitely works in the band's favor. This is an album that gets better with repeated spins. Dreamy tracks like "Phoenix Rising," "Feels Like Yesterday," "Humble High" (our favorite), and "Light" make this album a purely rewarding listen. Should appeal to fans of The Flaming Lips and early Pink Floyd. (Rating: 5+)

Kapital Ink Magazine:
Way more chunka-chunka guitars this time than on previous efforts, along w/ the brassy snatch o' the Dandys n' Jessica Fletchers. Who's that on "Revelation Blues"... James Gang? Organ alternates with Neil Young guitar huff (that's REVOLUTION blues" mofo) with driving Left Banke/Zombies waltz-time, before another chunk o' Leslie West...and that's a big chunk, bro. Lennon shows up hand-in-hand with Eric Carmen, wearing a dress. There's even one INSTANT classic in the form of jubilant "Daydream" (fans of Cracker and Love Battery take note). Hazy horizontal loopity boop, as engulfing as Bunny Carlos' beergut. Let the dimming begin...

Skyscraper Magazine:

These veteran dream-poppers from Frisco keep on keeping on. And with We Live Now, their fifth full-length, Dora Flood may well have made the best of their decade plus career. The band have lately been cutting liberally their tasty base of shoegazery droning with an ever-expanding sampling of guitar rock idioms, creating some impressive genre-blending. That practice just gets better here. Opener "Phoenix Rising" literally does: from a ground zero of garagey riff, guitars quickly stretch skyward, droning in a vapor trail chorus, layered over a bluesy rhythm bed. It's pretty much everything that the new-gazers so often miss in this music. The ensuing two cuts, "Everywhere We Go," and "Feels Like Yesterday," speak of the psychedelic sixties with authority, the latter, especially, brings on pangs of Byrds nostalgia. Then Dora Flood get playful. "Revelation Blues" is a sludgy, funky piece of early seventies blues-rock that would do Deep Purple proud, playing as it does with their most famous riff. Elsewhere classic FM rock, sleepy stoner ballads, Beatles-esque trippery, and space rock jams get the Flood treatment. And closer "Light" is just that, by turns an update on CS&N style folk-rock and Nilsson sunshine pop. More like this one, please. (Michael Meade)

www.doraflood.com